Page 13 of Accidentally Amy

Stage 2: Oh, he’s mocking me to the barista. How fantastic.

Stage 3: Be the bigger person and apologize.

Stage 4: He’s refusing my apology, holy shitballs.

Stage 5: Be defensive and awkward as hell.

I was glad he left, because I wouldn’t have been capable ofnotacting like an absolute sketch ball while we waited for our drinks together, but now I was more nervous than ever about going to work.

Because that man was definitely going to fire me.

I mean, when I offered to buy him a coffee, he looked at me like he was a father staring at his most disappointing child, like my mere existence was taxing to his Zen or something.

I wanted to scream,All I did was snag a drink, you dick, but that definitely wasn’t going to help my situation. But it was hard to believe that the coffee was it, the only thing that’d changed him from a flirtatious, charming stranger to the glaring executive who seemed to hate me on sight.

I mean, aside from my snarkiness after the fact, but that’d been after the fact, so I didn’t think it counted.

I walked to the Ellis building and went straight to my office, because I had a lot of work I wanted to tackle before Pam got there. I wanted to read the employee handbook, log in to the HR software to get my bearings, and memorize the building layout so I didn’t get off on an incorrect floor and look like a noob.

My employment at Ellis might be precarious, but until Blake Phillips fired me, I was going to give it my all.

•••

“This isn’t something you’ll normally be involved in, but since you’re shadowing me, it’s your lucky day.”

I grabbed a notepad and my coffee before following Pam toward the conference room. “Boring?”

“If you make it to lunch without nodding off,” she said, giving me a look, “I’ll be surprised.”

I wasn’t looking forward to sitting through a boring meeting, but Iwasa little interested in the process. It was the annual benefit renewal strategy session, where our current insurance provider would be pitching its plan for the upcoming year, which Pam would in turn pitch to Ellis’s board of directors, who would ultimately make all the decisions.

Exciting? No. Interesting? I kind of thought yes, but I’d always been into administrative red tape; as a kid, Businesswoman with Many Files was my absolute favorite game of pretend.

Pam introduced me to the broker, Kelli, before we took ourseats around the huge conference table. We were early, so Pam chatted with people as they filtered in while I doodled on my notepad.

Just before the meeting was about to begin, I heardhisvoice. He was talking quietly, but my ears definitely picked up the Blake in the room, and it took every bit of discipline I had not to turn and look toward the doorway.

Kelli launched into her presentation, projecting slide after slide of cost analysis and comparisons of what the plan had cost the year before. I took copious notes at first, but after a couple hours, I lost my verve and switched to mere listening.

Just when my eyes were getting heavy, a question came from the other end of the conference table.

“Do those numbers reflect the midyear change to the 505? I didn’t see that in the data.”

Since everyone looked at the speaker, I allowed my eyes to seek him out. I turned my head toward Blake’s voice, and my stomach dropped when I looked at him.

What was he, the freaking king? He was sitting in a conference chair, just like everyone else, but there was something about him that just screamed LEADER. Maybe it was his posture, the superhero-esque girth of his stupendous chest, or the arrogant hawklike intelligence in his stare; I didn’t know what “it” was, exactly, but the man had an aura of power.

He was dressed impeccably, like yesterday—perfect suit (charcoal this time), pressed shirt, tie—but he was wearing glasses today. A pair of stylish frames sat atop his strong nose, making him look like the most intelligent human hottie in the cosmos. He looked smart and so attractive that I wondered howmany women in that room were fantasizing about him that very minute.

I would guess all of them.

As if hearing my thoughts, he locked his eyes on mine. Kelli answered his question, and he appeared to be listening, but his eyes were just alittleto the left of Kelli’s location, wholly focused on me while his jaw did that little flex-unflex thing.

Yes, I know you hate me—no need to give me the flex.

I rolled in my lips and met his gaze, lifting my chin a little just to make sure he didn’t think he intimidated me. It was mind-blowing that this man had seemed kind of into me twenty-four hours ago when all I got from him today was supreme irritation.

“Does that answer your question, Blake?” Kelli asked.

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